A Marine for His Mom

by Christy Jeffries

  And that, in a nutshell, explained why Maxine had allowed this unorthodox pen pal relationship to continue. Her heart broke for her son. Back when Hunter was in preschool, and even in kindergarten, all the kids seemed to be on equal ground. But it didn’t take long for social awareness and parental attitudes to filter into the classroom. And, by third grade, Hunter suddenly didn’t mesh very well with the other kids anymore.

  At first Maxine had thought it was because of her. The other moms had always seemed to be a little threatened because she’d once been a college cheerleader and still looked the part. Plus, since she was single, she had the feeling that the other women went out of their way to make sure that she never spoke to their husbands alone—or even when under their direct supervision. So she and Hunter were rarely invited to any evening or family activities.

  Then, when Maxine launched her cookie shop, she became so busy that she had very little time for playdates or other after-school events that kept all the other kids socially relevant.

  She only wished she could keep Hunter as productive as the Sugar Falls Cookie Company. But her once-happy little boy had become increasingly introverted. And, as a result, he’d turned his attention more toward his computer and less toward the natural, outdoorsy life that their small-town community had to offer.

  Luckily, she had her best girlfriends and her mother-in-law to help keep her son busy. And recently, she’d hired more employees to help out in the shop, which gave her a little more time for Hunter, although he didn’t seem to want to do anything. But this pen pal business certainly had him perked up, so Maxine jumped on the chance to nurture his enthusiasm.

  It was tough enough raising her son alone. Even if Bo hadn’t wrapped his car around a tree in an overinflated exhibition of masculine pride, he probably wouldn’t have stayed around long enough to help her raise Hunter anyway. But still, having to meet her son’s pen pal face-to-face and playing chauffeur to some soldier they’d never met was one of those things no single-mom handbook had ever addressed.

  So now she was winging it.

  Back in September, she’d glanced at some of their earlier correspondence, if only to make sure this Cooper guy wasn’t some predator or an otherwise bad influence on her sweet-but-naive son. The marine seemed on the up-and-up and she figured the relationship would run its course and fizzle out eventually. She wasn’t happy about this unexpected shift in proximity or the significance Gunnery Sergeant Cooper was now having on both their lives.

  Had she really let her son leave school early today for this?

  “Did you print out that email with his itinerary?” she asked, wishing she had given this whole airport to hospital run a little more consideration.

  “Yeah, here it is.” Hunter’s growing fingers held it under her nose, and she remembered the way she used to kiss those little hands when he was a baby.

  She almost missed the exit for the airport.

  “Hunter, I’m driving. I can’t read it right this second.”

  “Then why’d you ask me for it?”

  “I wanted to know the exact flight details.”

  “He gets in at one forty-seven.”

  “Yeah, you told me that part already when you were practically shoving me out the door. But what airline is he coming in on, and are we supposed to take him straight to the hospital or what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” Maxine leaned her head against the leather headrest and slowly took three deep breaths. What she really wanted to ask was, How do I keep forgetting that you’re only ten and don’t understand the ways of the world? And how do I let you talk me into these kinds of things? But she saw the excitement on her son’s face as he looked at the prized email again. “Just read me what it says.”

  To: hunterlovestherockies@hotmail.net

  From: matthewcooper@usmc.mil

  Re: Itinerary

  Date: Jan 6

  So my plane gets in on Thursday at 1:47pm. Don’t worry about picking me up or anything. Boise Airport is both a civilian and a military airfield. It has military facilities on-site, so I can arrange for someone from the reserves unit there to take me to Shadowview.

  I don’t know what I plan to do after the surgeries are over, but I doubt I’ll get all the way up to Sugar Falls. We’ll just see how my physical therapy goes. I’ll look into getting a stateside cell phone when I arrive, so maybe hold off on calling the hospital for constant updates on my status.

  Also, there’s really no need to get me a Boise State T-shirt. Contrary to what you told me, I’m sure I’ll manage to find appropriate Idaho clothes so that I won’t “stick out like boobs on a bowling ball.” You really need to stop repeating the dumb stuff you hear that Jake Marconi kid saying. You don’t want to get your butt kicked by offending someone’s girlfriend.

  See you in a few days,

  Cooper

  “Hunter, that doesn’t tell us anything. We should have checked his flight info. Do we even know if he’s flying on a commercial airline? What if the plane is late? What if the hospital sent an ambulance to pick him up?”

  “Then I’ll ride to the hospital in the ambulance with him and you can pick me up there.”

  What world was her son living in that he thought she would ever approve of that harebrained idea?

  But they had just pulled into the short-term parking area, so she was fully invested at this point and needed to keep her frustration in check.

  “Here’s the deal, Hunter. You can meet him. We’ll say hi. But you’re not spending any time alone with him.”

  “Mom, c’mon. Miss Gregson’s brother is the military psychologist and personally screened all the marines before they were allowed to write to kids. They’re fighting for our freedom. They’re not weirdos or anything.”

  Her sweet son wouldn’t know a weirdo if it jumped out of the Star Wars cantina scene and landed directly in his bed—right next to the wiener dog stuffed animal he still slept with every night.

  She turned off the engine and shot him one last look, but he was already climbing into the backseat to retrieve the Welcome Home sign he’d worked on all last night. Then he was out the door and heading toward the arrivals terminal before she thought to ask him to show her a picture of what his pen pal looked like.

  * * *

  Cooper had barely hoisted the olive-green canvas duffel off the baggage claim conveyor belt and onto the floor beside him when he heard his name being shouted from behind the security guard checking luggage tags. All sound drowned out as a chubby ten-year-old waving a hand-painted poster board sign that said “Welcome Home, Cooper” ran at him.

  If he hadn’t set the wheel lock on the wheelchair when the airport personnel had parked him, he suspected the way Hunter launched his thick little body at him would’ve toppled them both over, chair and all. As it was, Cooper’s injured leg screamed in protest at the sudden impact, but his heart leaped in joy at the way the kid’s arms tightened around his neck.

  He clung to the short boy dressed in a Colorado Rockies T-shirt, not sure why he was allowing himself to get so emotional in a random airport in the middle of America. Hunter was practically a stranger, yet at that second, he seemed closer to Cooper than anyone else in the world.

  At every deployment homecoming he could remember, he’d stood to the side and watched the other marines reunite with their loved ones. He’d never begrudged his fellow soldiers their families or their loving receptions, but it had always made him feel a little... Well, it stirred up an ache somewhere deep inside to know that the only welcome he’d ever get—if he got one at all—was from a USO volunteer doling out a cup of coffee and a smile to anyone wearing a uniform looking the least bit lonely.

  Something about squeezing Hunter back just as tightly as he was being embraced felt so right, and it made his eyes w
ater a bit.

  He needed to knock off all this sentimental crap. It must be the exhaustion and the jet lag. He ordered himself to man up and not become all weepy in public. Someone might think he was getting teary-eyed, and Cooper never cried. Not since... Well, not since he was practically too young to remember.

  “I said you didn’t have to come meet me.” Cooper studied Hunter’s freckled face and huge crooked-toothed grin. No one had ever been this excited to see him before.

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t wait to meet you. I didn’t even sleep last night. I made my mom get me out of class early so we’d be here on time.”

  At the mention of Hunter’s mom, Cooper looked to his left and saw a tan pair of cowboy boots. His gaze traveled up the most toned and sexy legs he’d ever seen. Her jeans fit her like a second skin and rode low on her hips, the waist ending just below the hem of her white knitted sweater. Her white down-filled vest didn’t cover up the fact that she had a knockout shape. Her beautiful face was surrounded by a mass of glorious blond curls. His fingers twitched at the thought of running through that silky hair, getting tangled in those...

  Man, the image he’d conjured up of a dowdy overweight and overworked cookie baker didn’t fit Maxine Walker one iota. In fact, she was stunning.

  For a couple of elevated heartbeats, he hoped she would launch herself into his lap, just as her son had. But even if he’d been wrong about her appearance, Cooper had the woman’s personality pegged right. She just stood to the side, distant and untouchable.

  Her feminine hair and clothes gave off a warm impression, but the daintily sweater-clad arms crossed tightly around her midsection signaled she was anything but happy to be there.

  Cooper had been in police work long enough to know when someone was trying to size him up for appraisal without actively making eye contact.

  He ruffled Hunter’s curly hair as he lifted the boy off his lap, then held out his hand to the woman who’d so obviously decided to close herself off to him. “I’m Matthew Cooper, ma’am.”

  Her palm was warm when it finally grasped his and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how it had been snuggled against her slim waist just a second ago. “It’s nice to meet you, Matt. I’m Maxine Walker.”

  He hated it when people called him Matt. Nobody but his mom and his childhood social worker had ever called him by his first name. And hearing the intimacy of his name from her lush pink lips would surely be his undoing. “Please, call me Cooper.”

  His leg was throbbing. He needed a shave and he had no doubt his eyes reflected his pain and his lack of sleep. Damn this stupid wheelchair and this stupid injury and everything else that suddenly made him feel like less of a man in her presence.

  He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, but he needed to get things in perspective. A single mom with ties to the community—any community—wasn’t for him. And the sooner he made that clear to himself, the better off he’d be.

  Unfortunately, his voice came out a bit gruffer than he intended when he said, “You shouldn’t have met me at the airport.”

  * * *

  At that, Maxine stepped back and recrossed her arms, not sure what to do with her hands. “Well, it’s a little too late for that, now, isn’t it?” She’d driven all the way down the mountain to meet his flight and the man acted as if they were bothering him? What a tool.

  A gorgeous, masculine tool with soft green eyes that made her heart bounce around like one of Hunter’s water balloons trapped inside her rib cage.

  Even with him seated in the wheelchair, she could see the man was tall and well-built. But just because he was attractive didn’t mean she was any more at ease around him. In fact, that throbbing in her heart had her feeling all kinds of uncomfortable.

  She’d already been on edge meeting this Gunny Cooper guy for the first time. And now, as he and Hunter were making a spectacle out of themselves in the middle of the baggage terminal, she didn’t know where to look or where to stand.

  One traveler had pulled out a cell phone, probably thinking he was recording some soldier’s emotional homecoming, which meant there would be video footage of them on the internet within hours.

  And what was with the “Call me Cooper” line? Could the guy be any more macho? Who went only by their last name? She understood military personnel and people who played team sports often went by their last names, but not in polite society.

  Polite society? Geez, now she sounded like her former mother-in-law, Cessy. It was just that she wasn’t Cooper’s teammate or his squad leader.

  Why was she already so damn frustrated, anyway? She wasn’t annoyed with him for being in town or even for not communicating with her about the whole transportation plan. She wasn’t even annoyed with him for having such broad shoulders or piercing eyes or hands that had made her own feel small and delicate.

  Okay, so maybe that bugged her a little bit.

  But hugging her son as if he were a loving father returned from the battle? Come on. Hunter was her child. She’d birthed him and raised him, and this testosterone-fueled stranger was acting as if he loved the boy more than she did.

  “I just meant that I didn’t want to be a bother or inconvenience anyone,” he said as he reached up to ruffle Hunter’s curly head again.

  How could she detest someone who looked at her son with such affection? Why couldn’t he have just said that in the first place instead of being so abrasive?

  “Don’t be crazy,” Hunter said. “Of course I was going to be here to meet my best friend for the first time. I told my mom that I didn’t care if she grounded me or if I had to ride my bike all the way down the mountain, but I was going to be here when your plane landed. No matter what.”

  “Sounds like your mom has her hands full with you, kiddo.” The man helped Hunter as the boy struggled to lift the weight of the Marine Corps–issued duffel bag.

  Did he just imply that Maxine couldn’t handle her own child? Her eyes narrowed at the remark.

  “Hunter, leave his bag alone. It’s way too heavy for you.” She didn’t want Hunter dropping the guy’s luggage and breaking something valuable. All she needed was a lawsuit.

  “Oh, he’s a tough kid, Mom. He can do it.” Cooper smiled at Hunter. Wait. Had a grown man just called her Mom? Of all the patronizing insults! And was he purposely trying to override her authority with her own son? She’d hardly said anything at all to him. So why was the guy being so antagonistic?

  Before Maxine could protest, Cooper began maneuvering his wheelchair himself as Hunter matched his wheeled pace toward the taxi stand, forcing her to trail behind, which probably suited Mr. Marine just fine. If he could’ve actually walked, he probably would’ve been leaping into a cab by now since he seemed so intent on getting away from her.

  “Uh, hey guys,” she called out as her boot heels clicked on the floor as she jogged to catch up with them. “Where are you going? What’s the plan?”

  Cooper used his hands to stop the wheels, then tried to execute some sort of turning maneuver, probably so he could face her. But he must not have been as experienced as he’d hoped because the brake handle caught midturn and it took him a few good thwacks to disengage it.

  It served the show-off right.

  “Well, I’m supposed to report to Shadowview by fifteen hundred hours so I can complete my admission paperwork. They said they’d send an ambulance to transport me, but I’m feeling fine so I think I’ll just hail a cab.”

  The gray pallor of his skin was heightened by dark stubble along his jawline, and the man looked anything but robust. In fact, he looked as if he was in a world of pain. Of course, being the macho marine he clearly thought he was, he’d probably rather pass out or die before admitting it to her. She almost whipped out her phone to call for an ambulance right then and there, but her son’s words interrupted her.

&
nbsp; “You don’t need to take a cab,” Hunter told him. “My mom’s car is super roomy. And since you can sit up just fine, you can ride with us. We’ll take you to the hospital. Besides, it’s on the way to Sugar Falls anyway.”

  No, no, no. Please say no, she willed him.

  The man who called himself by his last name finally got his chair turned around just then and squinted those green eyes at her, as if trying to decipher the workings of her innermost thoughts. He must have read her mind because he lifted the corner of his mouth in a smirk that seemed to issue a challenge, and replied, “You know what, Hunter, that’s a good point. I’d appreciate the lift.”

  Seriously? There was no way Cooper could possibly believe hitching a ride up the winding mountain road with her and her chatterbox son would be a wise decision. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t like her, so why would he want to confine himself in a vehicle with her for the next thirty minutes? Unless, of course, he was accepting the invitation—which Hunter had no business offering—just to rattle her.

  Maxine decided then and there that Cooper had to be the most contrary man she’d ever met. And the most attractive. But she’d never let him know that. And she’d be damned if she would let him think he was making her uncomfortable. Instead, she’d play the game his way. And she’d do it better.

  Just in case he planned to stick around after his recovery—God forbid—then it was better to put him in his place now and let him know that she was calling the shots. It was petty and childish, for sure...but Gunny Heartthrob had started it.

  She pulled the keys out of her purse and dangled them as she said, “Great, then it’s all settled. I hope you don’t mind women drivers.”

  Chapter Two

  Maxine had barely driven away from the Shadowview Military Hospital when Hunter started in on all of his upcoming plans to visit his pen-pal-turned-best-friend. She nodded her head and made noncommittal “hmm” sounds every few minutes, but her teeth made deep indentations along her tongue as she kept herself from discrediting the man to his number one fan. She didn’t want Hunter to get his hopes up, and prayed he would lose interest in his new hero by the time Cooper got his discharge papers.